...annnd I think a couple of Arsians work for the big G, so I want to try to get some input. I'll actually be working on the network side of things out of Reston, VA. I'll be working with the Transport group in designing and deploying new data centers and PoPs on the East Coast and into South America.

So my first question is, is the corporate culture at Google really like what the outside scuttlebutt says it is, i.e. laid back but focused with pretty high expectations? Is the software side different from the hardware side? If anyone works at a location other than Mountain View could they possibly provide input on how things are different, or how they are the same? When I interviewed with the person who will be my manager he said that the biggest drawback of Reston vs Mountain View is that the free cafeteria food wasn't quite as good. So, I'm taking that as a positive.

I haven't met formally with HR yet so I know absolutely nothing about the benefit and time off side of things. Are they competitive? I'm coming from Comcast (thank $Diety I'm out), and one of the things I can say about them is that the benefits were really good and priced well.

First off, congrats! One thing that I hear from various Googlers, though all software engineers, is that it's much harder to advance while working at offices other than Mountain View. In other operations areas, that may not be the case at all, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

...annnd I think a couple of Arsians work for the big G, so I want to try to get some input. I'll actually be working on the network side of things out of Reston, VA. I'll be working with the Transport group in designing and deploying new data centers and PoPs on the East Coast and into South America.

So my first question is, is the corporate culture at Google really like what the outside scuttlebutt says it is, i.e. laid back but focused with pretty high expectations? Is the software side different from the hardware side? If anyone works at a location other than Mountain View could they possibly provide input on how things are different, or how they are the same? When I interviewed with the person who will be my manager he said that the biggest drawback of Reston vs Mountain View is that the free cafeteria food wasn't quite as good. So, I'm taking that as a positive.

I haven't met formally with HR yet so I know absolutely nothing about the benefit and time off side of things. Are they competitive? I'm coming from Comcast (thank $Diety I'm out), and one of the things I can say about them is that the benefits were really good and priced well.

Any kind of feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I will likely be working with you at some point.

I am in Mountain View, but I work closely with the site bringup team for purposes of network health monitoring and other site-level issues.

"Laid-back" in this sense means less attention is paid to external factors -- people showing up in shorts and t-shirts, eating cereal at 3pm for a snack, or going video conferences from pool/beach side isn't uncommon. "Laid-back" in the sense of "Meh, whatever yo get done is fine" isn't the case -- most people are anything but laid-back about their actual job, and will push on it relentlessly.

I'm specifically in the Platforms group, where we do a lot of hardware development. The only difference between hardware and software is age -- since there are fewer hardware types, there is a heavier emphasis on experience, which tends to translate to a higher average age. This in turn leads to less "goofiness", but at the same time a deeper understanding of the background for various technologies.

For benefits, assuming you are full time, starts at something like 3 weeks of paid vacation, unlimited sick time, and all the other amenities as per usual (health, dental, etc). We have a large host of stuff as benefits, but I'm not sure which stand out more than any others.

Congratulations! I hope it is an amazing ride and a great expansion of your knowledge and abilities. That's all I ever hope for when I start a new job, it's not too much to ask right?

Quote:

"Laid-back" in this sense means less attention is paid to external factors -- people showing up in shorts and t-shirts, eating cereal at 3pm for a snack, or going video conferences from pool/beach side isn't uncommon. "Laid-back" in the sense of "Meh, whatever yo get done is fine" isn't the case -- most people are anything but laid-back about their actual job, and will push on it relentlessly.

Sounds like it is more like "get all your shit done, and more, in time or faster than is planned... BUT do it from wherever, dressed however", etc. Yes? No? Just wondering. Maybe one day I will wind up at the Googlemachine. My org is close to that philosophy, but not quite there.

Lord Firth, cool, I hope to see you at some time. When I said laid back but focused, I pretty much meant what you fleshed out. That's definitely the vibe I got at Mountain View. Do your job, do it well, we don't care how you look. I also got the feeling that the hardware/network side of things is a little older and a little more serious.

I'll actually be in Mountain View for a week when I formally begin working. I was told that everyone starts at Mountain View, and I can see the logic in that. So, I'm pretty psyched for it. The job itself sounds extremely cool, and I get to get back to what I liked about my Comcast job before everything started taking a turn for the worse. I enjoy nothing more than building networks and seeing something move from an idea in my head to a drawing to an actual physical buildout. When everything is fired up and it works as planned, it makes for a very happy pumkinut. Of course, when there are problems, that part can be fun too, because you get to figure out puzzles.

It's good to know I won't be losing any vacation time. At Comcast, I started out with two weeks and moved up to three when I hit five years of employment. It's also nice to know that sick time doesn't come out of the vacation pool. I know I'll get deluged with information when I get to Mountain View and meet with HR, I was just trying to get a feel for things before I actually fly out.

Sounds like it is more like "get all your shit done, and more, in time or faster than is planned... BUT do it from wherever, dressed however", etc. Yes? No? Just wondering. Maybe one day I will wind up at the Googlemachine. My org is close to that philosophy, but not quite there.

Sort of... I don't know how to put this, so forgive my wording, but there's very little "stick" and many more "carrots" used. Most of the focus comes from people's internal drive to do better, and less from a "I'm doing what I'm told"-kind of view. Management for most teams is of the "advertising/marketing/convincing"-methodology and less of the "you are now ordered to do this"-type of thing.

An example: I'm working on a security review for a project, and I got to a part where I they wanted a review of some code that one of the guys on my team wrote. I'm not his manager -- I'm his manager's manager. So I ask him (with the knowledge of his manager), "Hey, can you do this review for your code?"

He answers, "Sure, I'll take a look at it."

He comes back an hour later, "Yeah, that looked like a lot of stuff that I don't want to deal with, so, no."

A follow-up on that - would that guy be facing any official negatives from his response? Is that a one-off or is that an acceptable MO in the org?

I like the carrots philosophy. Not sure I jive with the dude who won't review his code, though

This was a one-off from the guy in this specific instance -- if he didn't ever do anything I wanted... well, we do still have sticks.

And, it wasn't a "code review", it was a more formal security review for a system we were going to deploy, and it was a very long and arduous process that is a one-time affair that I don't have a real issue with him saying "no" to.

If he was saying "No" to normal code reviews... well, that would be considered a "career limiting move".

LordFirth, another question. I asked my staffing contact, and he really couldn't provide an answer, instead deferring to my soon-to-be manager. I'm still going to email my manager about it for specifics, but maybe you can shed some light. Since I started at Comcast 10 years ago, I've always had a company provided cell phone. I've had a Blackberry for the past 4 years. I'm assuming that Google is more of a BYOD type of setup judging from what I saw when I was in Mountain View. The staffing contact said that he expenses his Nexus 4 bill that was given to everyone from Google. Does this tend to be the case with everyone? Also, what can parts of the bill can I expense?

I'm assuming that I'll get a smartphone of some sort since I'll probably need email access. So can I expense the data plan as well as the voice portion? I'm also assuming that I'll have responsibility for any app purchases, which is fine. It's just a whole new world for me as far as picking out a handset, a plan, plus choosing a provider. If you don't know, I understand. If you want to respond to any of this via PM, feel free as well.

Most of this I'll respond with openly. The cellplans are covered if you have a business need -- for example, if you're oncall, or you travel a lot to do your job, plans would be covered. If you don't have a business reason for a call, it doesn't tend to be covered. As they say, "That's why we pay you."

Same goes for expensing a device. My current one wasn't expensed -- it was a Holiday gift, however. Which is why the usual response to the above is, "Buy my own phone? What am I, a farmer?"

Hey, congratulations man! Are you relocating, then? As I'm sure you're aware, there a lot of Arsians in the greater DC / Northern Virginia area. I work in Reston, myself. We'll have to grab a celebratory beer at some point.

I'm not relocating for now. I'll be commuting about 2hrs each way for the foreseeable future. It's going to suck, but in the larger picture, it's looking more and more like that will be the only real downside to this change.

It's funny, I've always been terrified of change to the point where I will actively avoid it at all costs. That's not the case this time. I am so ready to move on from where I am currently, that I'm actively, for the first time since going back to school for my BSEE, seeking change and new challenges in my life. I kind of know what I'm walking into, but it's still a very big unknown, and I'm never been more excited in my life.

Thanks everyone for the congrats. I remember being in Raleigh at NC State when Google first came on the scene, and, as they grew, thinking I'd never be good enough to be apart of it. Now, I'm getting ready to sign on the dotted line and fly out to California in two weeks. Funny how things go sometimes.

Yup, it's 2hrs each way. It's more than doable. I know some folks who commute to NY every day via train (approx. 3-4 hrs total). It's going to suck, sure, but there are worse things. In my current job with Comcast, I'm almost always on the road. Last year, for instance, I put over 40,000 miles on my company vehicle. That same vehicle (2011 Ford Escape Hybrid, nice car) will be 2 years old in April. I just passed 65,000 miles on it. I got it with 11 total miles on the odometer. So, you can say that I'm used to driving. The territory I cover now includes MD, DE, VA, and WVA. There are times where I'm driving 6hrs, one way, to get to a site. I've driven that far, worked all day, then driven home before. Driving 6+ hours a day during a normal workday is something I've been doing for the past 10 years. The commute to Reston is actually a bit of a respite considering that's all I'm going to be doing.

Yup, it's 2hrs each way. It's more than doable. I know some folks who commute to NY every day via train (approx. 3-4 hrs total).

Sounds like you have considered the commute. But train commutes =/ car commutes. (Although, you would need to pay me FU Money for a 4 hr train commute).

I'm well aware that train and car commutes are different, and I went on to explain, in detail, why a 2hr commute is somewhat better than what I'm currently doing now with Comcast. I only pointed that out to offer a comparison when talking about total time commuting.

I drive past Reston occasionally for work as is, either when going to Equinix in Ashburn, VA, Leesburg or Warrenton, VA for work. I know full well what I'm getting into.

Sounds like you know what you're doing wrt the commute, but I'll ask one question: do you have an exit plan? A two hour commute is certainly doable, but after a year or two it gets very, very tiresome. Doubly so if you have a family.

Regardless, congrats! Joining the Googleborg is a high achievement in the tech world, you should be proud.

Pardon my ignorance here, but with a 4HR daily commute and a brand new job at Google (where I'm making the assumption its not just your 9-5 workday and go home) and assuming 7-8 hours of sleep a night, what time is left for the rest of your life?

FU money indeed is what it would take for me to endure a 4HR daily commute.

Pardon my ignorance here, but with a 4HR daily commute and a brand new job at Google (where I'm making the assumption its not just your 9-5 workday and go home) and assuming 7-8 hours of sleep a night, what time is left for the rest of your life?

FU money indeed is what it would take for me to endure a 4HR daily commute.

Why not relocate?

1) I haven't slept 8hrs/night on a regular basis in close to 20 years. I usually sleep between 4 and 6 hours depending upon how I feel.2) The schedule isn't incredibly different from what I do now. Instead of leaving the house at 7, I'll leave at 5:30. I'll go to the gym before work instead of after, and I'll get home at around the same time, because I go to the gym after work no and usually don't get home until sometime between 8 and 9.3) It's not about the money.4) I can't relocate now because of familial reasons.

So my first question is, is the corporate culture at Google really like what the outside scuttlebutt says it is, i.e. laid back but focused with pretty high expectations? Is the software side different from the hardware side? If anyone works at a location other than Mountain View could they possibly provide input on how things are different, or how they are the same? When I interviewed with the person who will be my manager he said that the biggest drawback of Reston vs Mountain View is that the free cafeteria food wasn't quite as good. So, I'm taking that as a positive.

I haven't met formally with HR yet so I know absolutely nothing about the benefit and time off side of things. Are they competitive? I'm coming from Comcast (thank $Diety I'm out), and one of the things I can say about them is that the benefits were really good and priced well.

It's Google. The benefits are quite good. I can't speak for family benefits, but for my wife & I, it's better than what I've had in the past.

pumkinut wrote:

Lord Firth, cool, I hope to see you at some time. When I said laid back but focused, I pretty much meant what you fleshed out. That's definitely the vibe I got at Mountain View. Do your job, do it well, we don't care how you look.

Yup. Purple hair happens. That said, there's nothing wrong with dressing somewhat nicely. I'm usually in jeans & a button up shirt, but tshirts and shorts are the more common dress. Or tshirts and jeans. It's just up to the person.

And the "Do your job & do it well" pretty much sums up Google. Also, don't expect to hit the ground running - your previous knowledge is a great base to build from, but everything is different inside. "Traditional methods" of doing things just don't scale to Google scale. That said, the stuff built internally tends to be amazing. Like, "... oh. Yeah, I suppose that was a really obvious way of doing it... why isn't everyone else doing that?" type amazing. The build system alone is a masterpiece...

pumkinut wrote:

It's good to know I won't be losing any vacation time. At Comcast, I started out with two weeks and moved up to three when I hit five years of employment. It's also nice to know that sick time doesn't come out of the vacation pool. I know I'll get deluged with information when I get to Mountain View and meet with HR, I was just trying to get a feel for things before I actually fly out.

One of the things I really appreciate is the "work from home" flexibility if people aren't feeling great (at least on my team). If you're sick, stay home and get better. If you're not entirely sure, stay home, whip the laptop out, and please don't share whatever you might have. This is a radical improvement from the common, "Yeah, I'm sick, but I have to get X done, so I'm going to go share with everyone else in the office."

pumkinut wrote:

The staffing contact said that he expenses his Nexus 4 bill that was given to everyone from Google. Does this tend to be the case with everyone? Also, what can parts of the bill can I expense?

I'm assuming that I'll get a smartphone of some sort since I'll probably need email access. So can I expense the data plan as well as the voice portion? I'm also assuming that I'll have responsibility for any app purchases, which is fine. It's just a whole new world for me as far as picking out a handset, a plan, plus choosing a provider. If you don't know, I understand. If you want to respond to any of this via PM, feel free as well.

Don't worry about it until you get there. If you have a valid work need for a cell phone, it's taken care of. If not, well... that probably means you don't have an oncall shift at all (which is it's own little perk). I've got a separate work phone for my oncall shifts (I don't care to mix personal and work cell phones). That said, the money you save on food alone will cover a personal cell phone plan. I usually eat two meals a day at work.

And no, we don't have any easier of a time getting a Nexus 4 than anyone else.

GodOfEmptiness wrote:

Pardon my ignorance here, but with a 4HR daily commute and a brand new job at Google (where I'm making the assumption its not just your 9-5 workday and go home) and assuming 7-8 hours of sleep a night, what time is left for the rest of your life?

I've actually been surprised by how reasonable the hours most people work are. It's not really a 9-5 workday in that "Get your work done, don't miss meetings, and try to average out to 40h/wk" is the scheduling guidelines more than anything else, but I haven't seen the insane 80h work weeks that most people assume happen. With my group (most of my coworkers are married with kids), it's not insane hours at all. It's flexible, not insane. There are certainly people working 60-80h weeks, but I think a lot of that is around the Mountain View campus, and I think a lot of it is less "I'm working 60-80h weeks" than "I'm at work 60-80 hrs/wk." There's a huge difference, and if you work 8h, and spend another 3-4 in the evening "at work" but doing tabletop gaming with friends or hitting the gym or something, it's not really the same as working 12h days. The MTV campus feels like college, and if someone had come straight out of college, to SoCal (where your apartment is a really expensive tiny little place), and you have an awesome workplace, why /not/ stay there longer? I certainly would.

Anyway, congratulations! I think a 4h commute is complete insanity, but that's up to you.

You're going to give up 1/4 of your waking hours to sit in the car, and not get paid for it?

Yeah, I moved as quickly as I could once I wound up in a similar situation. 4 hours in a car is just fucking stupid, no offense meant.

As I have said several times, the commute is something I've considered, and am fine with for the time being. I'm no stranger to long, and I mean long days behind the wheel. Plus, I have a hard time believing that a lot of these people would turn down an opportunity from Google, especially leaving what I am behind, simply because of a slightly onerous commute.

Syonyk, thanks for the feedback it really helps. I've had some more contact with my soon-to-be manager. Sounds like everything will be fine. I did learn that I'm not going to Mountain View for orientation, rather, I'm headed to NYC the week of Feb. 11th. I'm slightly disappointed, I was looking forward to going to Cali, simply because New York in February is cold and kinda dreary. But, it'll all be good.

4 hours a day is not a "slightly onerous commute". 4 hours a day, assuming a roughly 40 hour work week, is a 50% pay cut. I can definitely understand why someone would jump at the opportunity to work at Google -- they're a company that my wife and I agreed we would move across the country for, but if you're smart enough to get in the door there, I struggle to think that you're not smart enough to score a better position that's closer to home.

Also a massive opportunity cost. 16+ hours a week gone from your life with no ability to get them back. No working during this time. No doodling. No hanging with friends or family. No reading. No games. Just droning on forward.

I had a single 4-hour long drive home once due to rain. Yeap, just rain. Mass drivers are fucking funny like that. A 1-hour drive (which would be 30 minutes w/o traffic) became a 4-hour drive, and I signed a new lease about 1/4 mile from the office about 2 weeks later.

That extra time gain (even gaining back 1.5hrs for example) is mind-blowing. Now I commute roughly 1 hour each way again, but 35-45 minutes of that is on a train with wifi where I can still do all sorts of things that aren't droning on forward.

FFS, people. You don't like the idea of the commute, I get it. Fine, good for you. I'm okay with it. For the time being, it's the best of all possible alternative for me. That's the long and short of it. My job at Comcast was going nowhere and it was getting to the point where I hated it. The position with Google is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. I won't get a job this good in my field elsewhere where I live. Carrier type networking jobs in the area for me are limited to Comcast, Verizon, possibly AT&T, and maybe a couple of other companies like XO or Level3. Verizon, I've looked into and interviewed for. It makes Comcast look like paradise. The other companies don't want to pay. It has nothing to do with me being "smart enough" to find something closer. Nice fucking insult, by the way. It does come down to there not being the jobs available in my particular field that are closer and worth it in terms of salary and job satisfaction. Remember, I'm not IT, I'm not a LAN guy, I'm pretty much WAN/Transport/Carrier. Most companies looking for network guys don't have need of the skills I have, nor do they want to allow for a ramp-up period for me to get my head wrapped around what they want from day one. I've interviewed for multiple jobs, and gotten that as feed back multiple times.

As I said, I've spent the past 10 years pretty much on the road for my job with Comcast. Apparently, most of the posters bitching about the commute don't know what that's like. 75% of the time, I'm driving. A 2hr commute to and from work isn't that bad for me, comparatively. Annnnd, as I've stated before, relocation is not, let me repeat, is not, an option for me at the current time. Believe me, my wife and I have talked about this extensively. I've discussed it with my friends. It's not something I'm glossing over. I'm willing to put up with it. Also, I've found out that there are others where I live who make the same commute, it's not as bad as people believe. I'm moving from a job where I've become very unhappy with the state of things to one where I'm making more money, am likely to be happy with what I do, am not on call, will be able to travel, possibly, internationally, will be able to grow my skillset, will be able to work with cutting edge technology, and it's....fucking...Google.

As I said, I've spent the past 10 years pretty much on the road for my job with Comcast. Apparently, most of the posters bitching about the commute don't know what that's like. 75% of the time, I'm driving. A 2hr commute to and from work isn't that bad for me, comparatively.

If you've spent the past 10 years like that you're just used to the evil that long commutes are.

I totally understand you, though. I'm currently at about 1.5h and was also willing to put up with that because the job's great, better payed and looks way more promising mid- and long-term. I've gone from 8 hours that I wish would pass faster down to three, which is a big increase in non-regretted lifetime. And imo that is the perspective you have to take on that.